by J. F. Gump
Copyright
Even Thai Girls Cry
ebook 2010, Smashwords edition
Text by J.F. Gump
ISBN 974-93100-4-7
eISBN 978-616-7270-30-2
Published by www.booksmango.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Text Copyright© J.F. Gump
Cover page Copyright© booksmango.com
All rights reserved.
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This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters and other elements of the story are either the product of the author’s imagination or used only fictitiously. Any resemblance to real characters, living or dead, or to real incidents is entirely coincidental.
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Author’s Note
Thailand. The very word conjures up images of an exotic,
faraway, land. Once known as Siam, Thailand is a beautiful and romantic country filled with rice paddies, ancient Buddhist temples, and deadly cobras. From the mountains in the north to the beaches in the south, Thailand is an endless treasure of excitement and adventure. It’s a magical world, which is rightfully known as “The Land of Smiles”.
The Kingdom of Thailand lies in the heart of Southeast Asia. It is surrounded by Myanmar to the west, Laos and China to the north, Cambodia to the east, and the Gulf of Siam to the south. The legendary city of Bangkok is its capital. This story takes place in the cities of Pattaya, Phitsanulok, and Chiang Mai. Strange names to western ears, but well known to Asian travelers. Pattaya, in the south, is the focal point of this tale. During “high season” - the tourist season - visitors from around the world come to Pattaya. For many, the allure is so strong that they return time and again. Some never go home.
For the sake of clarity while reading this book: One Thai baht is worth about 2½ U.S. cents, a kilometer is about .62 miles, a farang is a foreigner of western descent, a wai is a polite Thai greeting with hands held together in a prayer-like fashion and U.S. Eastern Standard Time lags Thailand time by exactly 12 hours (12:00 noon in the U.S. equals 12:00 midnight in Thailand). I am sure there are other things I should tell you, but these are the ones that first come to mind.
Chapter 1
Tippawan Bongkot stood at the intersection and stared down Soi Bonklong, a dusty side street near the Nan River. Not far away was the small house she shared with Sawat, her fiancé. It was little more than a hovel, but it was their home. Someday, when they had saved enough money, they would find a nicer place to live.
As she stood there, a trace of anxiety crept through her. Today was Thursday, and Sawat was not expecting her home until late tomorrow night. As far as he knew, she was still at her job in Bangkok, and not here in Phitsanulok. She wondered what his reaction would be when he saw her. She hoped he would be happy, but she knew he might not be. Lately, he was always in a bad mood, as if her very presence irritated him. During the last couple of months, he had grown distant, almost indifferent. She couldn’t even remember the last time they had made love.
Tippawan suspected that Sawat had found another woman to satisfy his male needs, while she pursued her career in Bangkok. She couldn’t prove it, but she was sure he was screwing the sixteen-year-old girl who lived at the far end of the street. Her certainty of Sawat’s affair had been at the forefront of her thoughts the night she allowed the police captain in Bangkok to seduce her. But there were other things too. Things a lot more basic, like the need to be wanted, loved, and desired - even if it was for just a moment. Things that Sawat had stopped giving her.
But Tippawan had not come home early to confess her indiscretion with the policeman, or to catch Sawat with his teenage lover; she had come to spend extra time with him and make one last attempt to rescue their faltering relationship. She wasn’t sure what would happen, if Sawat rejected her again this weekend. Probably nothing, except that she would sleep with the police captain again next week.
A young man on a motorcycle sped past and came to a stop in front of her house. She didn’t recognize him, but thought nothing of it. She figured he was a friend of Sawat’s and that she would meet him soon enough. At least it wasn’t that girl. She continued her short walk home.
Tippawan hesitated at the doorstep. She wondered if Sawat would somehow know she had been with another man just two days ago. She was sure there was no way he could tell, but the thought bothered her nonetheless. She took a deep breath, put on her best smile, and entered the house. What she saw put her into a state of shock.
Sawat and the young man were in an unmistakable sexual situation. Sawat was the dominate partner, that much was clear. What he was doing to the young man made Tippawan want to vomit. If Sawat had been with another woman, even the slut down the street, she might have understood and been able to forgive. But this was not a case of simple infidelity - this went beyond anything she could have ever imagined. Her shock gave way to outrage and all sanity deserted her.
The screams which erupted from her were like those of some mindless beast. It wasn’t Tippawan, but some unknown thing that had found its way inside her body. Emotions she never knew existed ripped through her. Her fiancé, the man she was to marry, was having sex with another man.
At that instant, Tippawan decided to end her life. She couldn’t live with such a shameful loss of face. With tears streaming, she fled into the bedroom and found the pistol Sawat kept hidden in the dresser. She had the gun-barrel shoved tightly beneath her left jaw and was building the nerve to pull the trigger, when he came into the room and shouted for her to stop.
His presence refueled her frenzy. She lowered the weapon from herself and pointed it at Sawat. Quickly she pulled the trigger. Bang! Bang! Bang!
Tippawan jerked upright in her seat and looked around, heart pounding. She was sure she had heard gunshots. The other bus passengers were looking too, but no one seemed overly alarmed.
The vehicle lurched and the bang came again. The bus was backfiring, and it was slowing down, too. A minute later, the driver pulled to the side of the road. Tippawan silently cussed her bad luck. She couldn’t even escape from Phitsanulok without something going wrong. She hoped it was not a sign of things to come.
The driver stood and announced that they were stranded until another bus arrived to continue their journey to Bangkok. With that he stepped outside and made a call on his cell phone. A few passengers exited the bus, their faces frowning at the situation.
Tippawan stayed in her seat. It was still cool inside, and she was sure their wait would be short. She closed her eyes and tried to relax. The minutes ticked past with agonizing slowness as the mid-morning heat intensified with amazing swiftness. Within the hour, she was one of the few passengers remaining on board.
Chapter 2
Tippawan stared out through the window at the surrounding Thailand countryside. Since the bus wasn’t moving, she could take in everything with a slow, casual glance. To her left was a large sakoo or tapioca field. To her right was an equally large pineapple field. Dividing the two fields and scattered helter-skelter across them were coconut trees. To Tippawan’s inexperienced eye, everything looked ready to harvest, ripe for the picking. But her relatives weren�
�t farmers, so she wasn’t really sure. The only thing she knew for certain was that it was damned hot inside the bus. What little breeze found its way through the open windows did nothing to ease the blistering assault of the late morning sun.
Trickles of sweat snaked through Tippawan’s hair and slid down her face and the back of her neck. Her clothes clung to her damp skin as if fastened by some perverted form of post-it note glue. Tippawan did not like to sweat, it was not lady-like. Besides, she thought, it would make her smell like the farangs, the foreigners who came to Thailand on holiday.
Outside, the coconut fronds and sakoo plants stood nearly motionless in the stagnant air. For a moment she was tempted to join the other passengers, who had already abandoned the broken down bus in favor of the cooler air outdoors. The glaring sun gave her second thoughts. Better to smell like a farang, she decided, than to have the sun darken her skin.
Tippawan, like most Thai women, preferred her skin to be as white as possible. Dark skin branded you as a common laborer, a peon. Light skin was beautiful. It elevated you to the status of the educated and the affluent - or at least something other than a peon. She chose to sweat it out inside the bus, and prayed the backup bus would soon arrive.
Tippawan was her given name but everyone knew her as Math. In Thailand, nicknames are common. Usually, the nickname has little or nothing to do with the person’s given name. For instance, Math’s oldest sister’s name is Chalamsee, but everyone calls her Nuang. Her brother’s given name is Peebanlat and everyone calls him Anan. Math didn’t know where her nickname came from. In Thai, the word Math means nothing, it is just a word. In English, Math is a shortened word for mathematics, the study of numbers and calculations. Her nickname was a mystery she had never asked about. She just accepted it in Thai lady tradition.
Math had left her hometown of Phitsanulok in north-central Thailand at six o’clock that morning, headed to Pattaya on the eastern seaboard of the Gulf of Siam. She was going to visit her older brother Anan. He wasn’t really that much older, but at her tender age of twenty-three, two years seemed like a lot.
Anan was now a successful entrepreneur. Two years ago, he had quit his full-time job as a graphic artist to start his own advertising business in Pattaya. He had taken a partner in exchange for the initial investment. The first months had been a struggle. Some weeks he made no money at all. During those lean times, he had borrowed money from Math to help pay his bills. She had little to spare but had given him what she could. Anan had never repaid her, but she had never pressed him about it either. In Thailand you don’t bother family over things like that - especially when it’s your older brother.
Anan’s business catered to Pattaya’s bustling tourist trade. Now was the so-called “High Season” and Math was sure his business must be booming. She knew Anan was making money because he had bought himself a house and two motorcycles. To have that much, at such a young age, made him the richest person in their family.
Math hadn’t been so lucky. Her own short-lived career had ended just a few weeks ago. After six months at her first real job with a finance company in Bangkok, her position had been terminated. It had happened so quickly. Looking back, she realized she should have seen it coming.
The finance company was in the business of making loans on cars, trucks and motorcycles. Math had been hired to work in collections and repossessions. Her workload had started large, then grew at an alarming pace. Every day, more and more people defaulted on their loans. Each default created a mountain of paperwork for everyone. Soon, the business of repossessions outpaced the business of collections, and Math barely kept up with her work.
As a corporate bill collector, Math had not been part of the company’s inner circle, but she had been a full-fledged member of the office gossip circuit. One of her friends was the secretary to the company president. The girl knew most of what went on in the front office but she kept her lips sealed tight. In their conversations, her friend never so much as hinted that anything out of the ordinary was happening.
Then one day, about a week before the end, she told Math everything. The Thai economy was in meltdown. Some of the banks which had been supporting the finance company had suddenly stopped. Even worse, they had been demanding full payment on past due advances. In an incredibly short time, the whole thing fell apart. The finance company folded and the employees were let go.
Oddly enough, Math felt responsible for the company’s failure. Not because of anything she had done, but because she believed she was a bad luck charm. Luck had never been her friend since the day she was conceived. She had little doubt that if they hadn’t hired her, the company would still be in business.
Math was sure her very presence had been enough to destroy everything. More than that, she believed her bad luck had somehow overflowed the bounds of her employer and brought the entire Thai economy to ruin. Bad Luck Lady. She called herself that sometimes. Bad luck to everything, even to this stinking bus.
There was a sudden bustle of activity outside. Stranded passengers rushed from the scanty pieces of shade they had found and headed toward the rear of the vehicle. Math pushed herself up in her seat and looked back. There sat another bus. She stood and headed down the aisle. Before she was even halfway to the door, the driver announced that the bus behind them was not the backup they were waiting for. It was just another bus with a few empty seats. The other driver had stopped to help however he could. An elderly couple and a lady with two babies were getting the empty seats.
Math turned and trudged back to her seat. Suddenly it felt hotter than ever. She didn’t know how much longer she could take the heat. If the backup bus didn’t arrive soon, she would have to risk getting her skin darkened.
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Math was conceived twenty-three years before, on a rainy night in early July. As confusing as it may seem, her biological father was not her mother’s husband. Math was an illegitimate child. Certainly, the out of wedlock conception had not been planned. Math’s mother, Nui, hadn’t meant for anything to happen that night. Especially, Nui had never intended to get pregnant. It had just happened.
At that time, Nui’s husband, an uneducated man named Supit, had been struggling to keep food on the table. At their house, missed meals and late rent payments had been the rule rather than the exception. Supit liked to drink and many of the family’s missed meals had gone to pay for his Mekong Whiskey. Whenever Supit drank, he was not a loving man. To the contrary, he was a verbally and physically abusive drunk.
On the night Math was conceived, Supit had come home crazy drunk. His assault had started with Nuang, their thirteen year old daughter. For no reason, Supit had started slapping at Nuang with his open hand. When Nui demanded he stop, he turned on her with his fists. His assault that night was brutal.
Nui was terrified her husband would kill her. She screamed for Nuang to take the younger children and run. When she was sure her children were away from the house, she, too, fled into the night. She went to a friend’s house for solace and protection.
Her friend took her in without question. He cleaned her cuts and tended her bruises. He held her tight and crooned softly until her panic ebbed to calmness. Before that night had ended, the comforting touch of an old friend’s hand had turned into a lover’s thrusting passion. In a minute it was over for the man, but for Nui it was only the beginning.
Within a month, Nui began experiencing physical symptoms she knew all to well from three previous pregnancies. At first she ignored the symptoms, hoping against hope it wasn’t true. After missing her third menstrual cycle, she knew she was pregnant. Also, she knew who the father was and it was not her husband. This wasn’t the sort of thing that happened to a married and proper Thai lady. It was the sort of thing that happened to the whores in Bangkok and Pattaya. Nui hated herself for what she had allowed to happen. If anyone ever learned the truth, it would bring shame to herself and to her family.
Nui had been desperate at the time, but she couldn’t afford a doctor - especially for something like the abortion of a bastard child. Supit’s work had become even more sporadic and they barely survived from day to day. He had even given up his Mekong Whiskey. Nui toyed with the idea of going to the unborn baby’s natural father for help, but she was too ashamed, too embarrassed.
In her fourth month of pregnancy, Nui attempted a self-induced abortion. A friend gave her a drug guaranteed to cause a miscarriage. Nui didn’t know what the drug was, and at the time she hadn’t cared. She only wanted to stop the baby from being born. But the drug didn’t work, and Tippawan “Math” Bongkot emerged into the world in March of the following year.
Math’s true father learned the truth when Nui was eight months pregnant. Unable to live with her disgraceful secret, Nui told him everything. Her confession turned the man inside out. He had known and loved Nui for a very long time and had once planned to marry her. Even after she married Supit, he had continued to fantasize of her having his child.
That day, when Nui told him she was pregnant with his baby, had been the happiest and saddest of his life. Everything he had ever dreamed of was happening, but he couldn’t take pride in any of it. As right as it was, it was wrong. His shame was overwhelming. Out of embarrassment, self-hate, and self-imposed humiliation, Math’s birth father entered monkhood on the day she was born.
Math had learned about her mother’s attempted abortion in a conversation she overheard when she was twelve years old. She would be much older before she discovered that Supit, her family father, was not her biological father.
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Thirty minutes after the Good Samaritan bus left, Math reached her moment of decision - dark skin or death by sweat. Dark skin really wasn’t all that bad, she finally convinced herself. She stood and headed down the aisle. As she neared the exit door, there was another flurry of activity outside. Again, she looked back. There sat another bus. It was empty. Thank Buddha!